Downloads & Free Reading Options - Results

A study examined patterns of development in spoken interaction and types of causal thought that might reflect the human capacity to displace, that is, to shift reference from the present moment to another moment in time. Participants were four infants and their parents, who came to a laboratory for one-half hour every 2 weeks from the child's fifth and one-half month until the ninth month. Cognitive tasks for auditory memory, for causality, and for ends/means relationship were administered during each session. Free interaction was videotaped for 12 to 15 minutes. Results showed that three of the infants inhibited parent vocalization for 4 to 10 seconds after their own vocalization, from the age of seven and one-half months to nine months. Parents decreased mean utterances to 7 seconds or less by the infants' ninth month. There was no apparent direction of relationship between interactive speech and some types of causal thought. Although interactive speech changed between five and one-half and nine months toward increased infant influence and, at the same time, causal thought accomplishments also increased, there was no clear direction indicated for the relationship between interactive speech and causal thought. (Extensive tables of data are appended.) (FL)

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert